Welfare Reform (People with Disabilities)

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this important debate. I know she feels strongly about the subject.

The Budget speech given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 18 March set out that there would be £12 billion of welfare cuts by 2017-18, yet since then there has been the general election campaign, numerous Prime Minister’s questions, Department of Work and Pensions questions and Treasury questions and we still have no definitive answers on where the cuts will fall. Indeed, on 22 June, the Minister was asked directly by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) whether he would rule out cutting the benefits of any disabled person over this Parliament, but all the Minister gave in answer was:

“We are clear that we will protect the disabled and vulnerable.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 600.]

This area needs definitive answers. With the uncertainty, a number of possibilities are regularly mooted for the Chancellor’s next Budget, such as restrictions to carer’s allowance and to the contributory element of employment and support allowance, as well as taxing disability living allowance, personal independence payments and attendance allowance. All those things would have an enormous impact on the weekly incomes of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Since the election, I have had some of the most vulnerable people in our society—the disabled—coming to my constituency surgeries extremely worried about what may happen in this Parliament. That includes people with mental health problems and people who have been disabled since childhood.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Justin Tomlinson)]

indicated dissent.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The Minister shakes his head, but he is welcome to come to my surgeries and hear what is said to me, because that is where the firm evidence is. Take, for example, the specific worries of sufferers of long-term conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. Those in receipt of long-term disability living allowance will soon be starting a reassessment, yet the mobility criterion has been reduced to 20 metres. Parkinson’s is a fluctuating condition, so they are extremely worried about losing the wheelchairs and scooters from which they may benefit, for example. Similarly, there are Parkinson’s sufferers in the work-related activity group. The nature of that group is about going back to work, but the condition is degenerative. Does the Minister not accept that the uncertainty created since the Chancellor’s Budget has been a source of worry and great anxiety to those in our society in receipt of benefits? I can only urge him to make representations to the Chancellor to at least come clean in the Budget on 8 July on precisely what will happen.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman has said. I have had email upon email from my constituents saying that they are hugely worried about what will happen in the Chancellor’s Budget. They are people with disabilities, their carers and their families—people in the most difficult of circumstances who are suffering huge anxiety and are feeling stigmatised, too. They do not want to hear so much rhetoric about hard-working people; they may well be hard-working people or aspire to be. We also heard something about handouts. Again, I agree with the concerns expressed by hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) about terminology. These people deserve our support, and it is our job to provide it.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I agree with the hon. Lady. The Government’s language is deeply worrying. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) made a point about weaponising the welfare state, and I am afraid that language like “shirkers” does exactly that.

Above all, I hope that through this debate the Minister has heard a real strong voice from the most vulnerable people. Some years ago, Aneurin Bevan said of the plight of those who were out of work in the winter months:

“It would be a disaster and it would be a disservice to the House if the feelings of those men were not allowed to find an echo within these walls.”—[Official Report, 26 November 1931; Vol. 260, c. 632.]

The same can be said of disabled and vulnerable people in 2015. If nothing else, I hope that today their voice has found an echo within these walls.